“Captain Twinklestar! Perdles! I am so happy to see you both!” Caboose suddenly appearing right beside Perdy. Meta had given Caboose an armor enhancement that involved cloaking, among other things, to help the him survive in the galaxy. The armor on his foot where the sniper rifle had penetrated was repaired and he was standing fine. Before he said anything else, he noticed Perdy holding a Popsicle. “Oh oh, is that a Popsicle?! I love Popsicles! I love the blueberry kind. Church wouldn't let me have strawberry because he said that because it was red, it'd be like being on the red army. That's okay though, because I like blueberry better.”

The blue armored soldier maintained the happy attitude for a moment, though he mood sobered quickly. “But now I can't enjoy it with my other pinky toe. Why God?! Why?! Was it for not giving enough blood to the scary alien baby? For killing Church the second time? For stealing those cookies from Pvt. McMuffin? It was the cookies, wasn't it?"

"Was it- I never noticed this before." Caboose said, suddenly noticing that the scope of his sniper rifle painting green outlines of everything in its view. "This is awesome! It's like green-o-vision, or something"

He pointed the sniper at a passing crew member. "Wow, you're all green and stuff!"

The crew member immediately did a dive and ran down the hallway, much to Caboose's lament as he lowered the high-powered weapon again. "Why are you running away?! It's because I shot myself in the pinky toe, isn't it?!"

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Meta stood in the background of the discussion, perceiving every detail the Xi revealed and attempting to discern beyond that. The versewalker didn't trust the husband to be fully honest we they questioned him, nor should he be. Xi would most likely lie to them and inform Plina of their investigation as soon as they left the estate. Xi himself had said that he could not afford to lose her or her money, and the Senator would undoubtedly use her powers to halt the investigation by way of conventional bureaucratic filibuster or less conventional, more direct methods. That was unacceptable, but he was willing to acquiesce until the time came for the actual interrogation.

Meta followed the Admiral to the speeder, continuing to think upon the matter and how they would go about this investigation.